The grades are in for Florida’s elementary and middle schools, and educators say it’s hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions from them.
Some schools maintained the same grade as the previous year and others dropped. Only one school in Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton counties — Jay in Santa Rosa — saw improvement.
This year’s grades are a reflection of students’ performance amid changing expectations from the new Common Core standards and a tougher Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
“It’s a refinement process,” said Tim Wyrosdick, superintendent of Santa Rosa County schools. “If our goal is that (our students) compete worldwide, globally, then these are the kind of standards we need to focus on.
“We’re reeling a little about what the expectations are, but we’re not saying they’re inappropriate.”
Educators across the state were bracing themselves for Friday’s results following a controversial debate at a state Board of Education meeting earlier this month about whether or not a “safety net” to prevent any school from dropping more than one letter grade should be put into place.
The board voted 4-3 to establish the provision, which mirrored one implemented last year amid similar concerns about drastic drops.
Prior to the adjustment, more than half of Florida schools would have received a C grade or below. Locally, the provision protected about three schools in Okaloosa and Santa Rosa counties from dropping more than a letter grade. No school in Walton County was affected.
“Our grades are truly what we earned,” said Carlene Anderson, Walton’s school superintendent. “We didn’t have a D and they gave us a C.”
While the grades might seem like an easy snapshot of the performance of every school, the formulas used to calculate them are complicated, according to Santa Rosa County Assistant Superintendent Bill Emerson.
Under the formula, if only a handful of the lowest performing students don’t show the required improvement, a school could drop from an A to a C in an instant.
“Yeah, we went down,” Emerson said. “But in the end, our schools, I think — and we’ll find this out at the end — are going to be some of the best in the state.”
As to the future, local school officials say they plan to keep moving forward to meet the Common Core standards and focus on strong teaching.
“We’re putting more focus on the students and not the grade,” said Kaye McKinley, deputy superintendent of Okaloosa County schools. “We don’t stop to wait for a school grade to do anything.”
High school grades are expected to be released later this year.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.
